


Someone Like That

by Skeli



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect 1 - Fandom, Mass Effect 2 - Fandom, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Is this the angst i've heard so much about?, POV Garrus Vakarian, Trust is important with these two, is this angst?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 13:53:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14717315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skeli/pseuds/Skeli
Summary: Garrus' thoughts about Shepard from Saleon up to Archangel.





	Someone Like That

**Author's Note:**

> This is within the same vein as a story I wrote from Shepard's point of view, so if you like it try reading 'Steady on the Ground.'

_"I don't think I ever met anyone like you, Commander."_

It was the truth, but it was also a kind camouflage. It wasn't precisely what he wanted to say, but he was afraid to say all that was on his mind. He spent more time thinking about Shepard than he would ever let on. He couldn't afford to give her a reason to distance herself from him. He liked being with her. He wanted to stay with her as long as he could, and the best way he could think to do that was to be just another good soldier. 

Not as good as her though. Never as good as Shepard.

She was the best soldier he ever met because she was also the best person he ever met. Power without empathy was the most dangerous thing in the world. His tangles with the worst of Citadel space allowed him to know that better than most.

Still, he didn't act with that knowledge like he should have.

He wouldn't have let Saleon go alive under any circumstances, but she was good at reasoning with him. He never would have naturally come the same conclusions she did, but he could never argue with her logic once she laid it out for him. Only after speaking with Shepard did he realize the drive he felt to bring Saleon to justice stemmed from his own righteous indignation at having failed the first time around. His motivation should have been the victims, the people used like livestock.

He wasn't thinking of them, but she was. It was the first thing on her mind.

Thoughtful to the point of insanity, that was Commander Jane Shepard.

She was more open with her thoughts than most commanding officers. If she hadn't been so transparent he'd have made the mistake of assuming she was a saint. She wasn't holy. She felt rage and pain. But unlike himself and so many others that fury never made its way into her decisions. She only thought about how she could help, about the best way through not just the fastest. She was as close to the divine as he would ever get, Garrus was sure of it.

Someone like that didn't die gasping for breath in the middle of space. It just wasn't right.

He found out only an hour before the news stations did . He wasn't family, Shepard had no family, so no one in the Alliance thought to tell him, but Liara had. He didn't ask how she knew, she had her ways. Liara told him over the phone Shepard had been spaced in surprise attack, and that they hadn't found the body. In all likelihood, she said gently through tears he couldn't see, there wasn't a body left to find.

The idea she died alone was almost as painful as the fact she was gone. She was always there for everyone, squeezing in side trips when she should have been resting just so her crew could find some small bit of joy. And she died alone.

It just wasn't right. Fair. She resolved long before he met her to give everyone a fair chance, but no one could extend the same courtesy.

He planned before her death to apply for Spectre status again. He entertained the idea that he and Shepard could work together as Spectres. Like partners, equals. He daydreamed often about being her equal, someone she could rely on.

Shepard and Vakarian, Spectres, Partners...

Friends.

Garrus was so wound up in what he wasn't when compared to her that he didn't cherish the relationship they had.

He was her friend. They'd had laughs, good ones. She liked his sense of humor. She told him things that bothered her, things he was reasonably sure she told no one else. The idea that she trusted him with her fears meant everything to him. She took him for all he had in poker once, but she didn't let him pay what he owed her.

_"Buy me a drink sometime, Vakarian. We'll call it even."_

He'd have given anything to have the privilege of buying her that drink, and revel once again in her special brand of insanity.

Garrus would have walked into Hell to pull Shepard from the flames, but that, like many other daydreams, would never come to pass.

Omega was as close to Hell as the living could get, so that's where he went. He didn't know if she approved of vigilante-style justice. Probably not. She believed in fair trials, even if it was the accused's guilt was plain as day.

Maybe she would have changed her mind if she knew the extent of what went on in Omega. Maybe she'd have done what only she could do, and convince him there was another way.

He would never know. He couldn't see the possibilities without her.

She was dead. Soon he would follow.

 

The Blood Pack had numbers, the Blue Suns had fire power, and the Eclipse had a plan. All of them together, and he was doomed. Of course, he was doing pretty well for a man on his last leg. Nobody could ever say Archangel didn't put up a fight, no matter how the mercs spun the tale. There were too many dead pilling up for them to fool anyone.

He calls his father, tries to make some kind of amends. He doesn't want his father's last memory of his son to be him spitting on the family legacy and running away die in some shithole. Castis tells him to keep shooting. He says he will, and hopes that's enough.

He lets himself daydream once again. It is easy to fall into the illusion, reality began to blur hours ago. He lines up a shot and pulls the trigger.

"Nice one," she says.

"Best shot in Citadel space," he says.

"We'll have to put that claim to the test some time," she laughs.

"Soon. Looks like I'll get to buy you that drink after all."

Shepard's ghost is sitting to his right, looking him dead in the eye.

"Don't you dare die in this place."

Garrus picks up the last of his stims and injects it into his the exposed flesh on his neck.

"I don't get to choose, Shepard. Just like you didn't."

"Yes you do. Not dead yet, Vakarian."

"No, not yet."

 There's a break in the enemy lines. He takes a deep, shuddering breath.

"Can I tell you something?" he asks.

"I always have time for my crew. What's on your mind?"

That line used to make him feel special, but after the last two years he spent trying to appease her memory it only made him feel like another face in the crowd. She meant so much to him, but he wasn't sure if the feeling was mutual. Still, if there was one thing she taught him it was sacrifice. He didn't have to come out on top, he just had to tell the truth. All of it.

"You are the best person I ever met. I admire and respect you more than anyone. Your trust was the greatest thing I ever earned. It was an honor to fight by your side, and I...I'm looking forward to seeing you. The real you."

He looks to his right. He is alone. He's been alone for a while now.

"Jane," he says, just because he can.

He was a fool to think she'd have shied away from him for telling her that. Shepard was as kind as she was devastating. He hoped that wherever she was, she could hear him. It was important to Garrus that she knew.

The mercs begin their next charge. He takes out a few before they even get over the barrier. He thinks his dad would have liked that.

Three humans launch themselves over the barrier before he can take them out. They are moving faster and more efficiently than the others, obviously used to fights like this, and yet one of them isn't wearing a helmet.

"What kind of crazy doesn't wear a helmet under sniper fire..." he mutters to himself.

It should be an easy shot no matter how fast she moves. He zooms in on his rifle's scope. Brilliant green eyes surrounded by a star system of freckles meet his keen gaze. Red hair curls just below her jaw, lips a serious line.

He almost misses the batarian behind her. Almost. He might be hallucinating or maybe, just maybe, the universe is making up for the shit its pulled over the last couple years. Either way, the sight of her is like water in a desert, and she'd better have a damn good explanation.

He missed her like nothing else.

"My kind of crazy," he smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> I like to think Garrus was half-way in love with Shepard before she came back to life, but he didn't notice until she asked him to bang. He's such a good character, love him to bits. 
> 
> Comments are like water in my desert.


End file.
